Almost two years ago, a reader of this site sent me the link to the first video below. It's from a production of Little Shop of Horrors and I thought the design and puppetry of Audrey II in this was the best I'd ever seen. Take a look and see if you don't agree…
I posted it here and asked, "Who built this puppet? Who's working it? Who's doing the voice?" It's taken a while but thanks to some helpful readers of this site and a bit of online detective work, I think I have the answer.
The puppet was built by Dennis Lancaster of Intermission Productions in Tracy, California. And he did a great job on it. The puppeteer who did such an amazing job of operating seems to have been a performer named Kyle Richlin and it may have been an actor named Daniel Simpson as the voice of The Plant. Whoever it was, he was also terrific.
In the meantime, if you're planning on staging Little Shop of Horrors in your school or theater or den and you want to rent the best danged puppets I've ever seen for your presentation, here's a little commercial for Intermission Productions. I don't know what they charge but they probably won't demand your last drop of blood…